AB Neo: New company to focus on neonates

AB Neo is a new business specialising in switching on lifetime performance in neonate farm animals. It has been founded by AB Agri Ltd) and is officially active since November 1st 2014.

The new company (www.AB-Neo.com) is founded on the growing understanding that neonates hold the key to switching on lifetime performance. By focusing on neonatal and maternal stages in farm animals the aim is to develop breakthroughs that will give greater commercial advantages to farmers around the world.

Malcolm Beaton, AB Neo's General Manager says, "As an industry we are trying to get 'more from less' and neonates present a real opportunity for raising an animal's performance for the rest of its life, helping us all as food producers to achieve greater performance than has been achieved before. We also see improved neonate development as a route to a reduction in antibiotic usage in our industry. A growing body of research across animal species has identified that the neonate phase in an animal's life can have a significant effect on the animal's total lifetime performance – for good or bad. This includes performance changes such as growth rate, feed conversion and milk production all of which have financial implications".

New product for pigletsAfter more than two years of research in a pioneering area of neonate nutrition in pigs, AB Neo is launching Axcelera-P, a new generation of products called 'Accelerators' for piglets. This product has been readily adopted by innovative pig farmers in the UK and parts of Europe prior to it being officially launched on 3rd November. Malcolm Beaton adds, "Neonate nutrition is very much about making an investment to achieve greater than normal returns later. The neonate presents us with a short window within which we can switch on its lifetime performance. Interestingly, the period of investment in a baby animal is when its intake is smallest, making the actual investment relative to the rest of the animal's life very small. Our trials show that if that investment is not made in the neonate, the opportunities for developing higher levels of performance have been lost for that animal's lifetime. It's about investing wisely and at the right time".